To drive real accountability, leaders must pair logic with storytelling that engages emotions, creates ownership, and motivates lasting process adoption.
You’ve mapped out the process. You’ve built the checklist. You’ve outlined the logic. You’ve even color-coded the dashboard. And yet – your team still doesn’t follow the process.
Why? According to Lisa Cron in her book Story or Die, it’s because people don’t make decisions based solely on logic. We make decisions emotionally and then justify them with facts. If you want someone to take action – whether that’s updating a project plan, completing a QC checklist, or closing out a phase – you have to give them a reason they feel, a reason they own.
That’s where story comes in. And no, I don’t mean fairytales. I mean real, relevant moments that resonate with your team and frame your process as the path to something they already care about.
See if this sounds familiar:
An office manager I coached recently – we’ll call him Jake – had a recurring issue. His engineers weren’t maintaining their project plans. Tasks were tracked informally, deadlines shifted without documentation, and estimates-to-complete were consistently inaccurate. Every week, Jake reminded his team to update their project plans. Every week, the same excuses came back: “It’s too time-consuming.” “I know what needs to be done.” “We don’t need software to tell us.”
So, Jake doubled down on logic. He built a slide that outlined the benefits of maintaining a project plan:
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- It provides transparency.
- It supports timely invoicing.
- It aligns the team with the scope and schedule.
He explained how to use the software, showed screenshots, and asked everyone to update their project plans weekly.
Except nobody changed a thing.
So, we tried a different approach. The next week, instead of slides, Jake told a story:
“It was 5:30 p.m. last Thursday. I was staring at my inbox, realizing I couldn’t finish the invoice. Why? Half the team logged time to the wrong phase, and the project plan didn’t reflect the updated scope. I hadn’t touched the plan in a month because – honestly – it always felt like a time suck. Now, I was scrambling to fix the numbers, emailing three people for clarification, and delaying the invoice another day. Again. And all while my sons were waiting in the kitchen for me to take them to the park and throw the football with the other dads.
“I always believed that maintaining the project plan just added more work. As long as I kept things in my head or on a scratch pad, I’d be fine.
“But this time was different. A change order hadn’t been logged, a task slipped through the cracks, and the project now looked like it was overrunning, when it actually wasn’t. The client noticed. My boss noticed. And my stress? Through the roof.
“That night, frustrated, I spent 45 minutes updating the project plan. I realigned phases, adjusted the budget, added the missing task, and set alerts for scope items. It wasn’t glamorous, but something shifted. I saw the data tell a story. And for the first time, I felt ahead of it.
“A month later, I walked into the project review meeting feeling confident. My ETCs were accurate. My schedule reflected reality. And invoicing? Done early, for once. The time I invested in the project plan paid off – not in more work, but in fewer surprises, cleaner execution, and a stronger reputation.”
The result? Use of the project plans spiked.
Why does this work? Lisa Cron makes the case that story is how the brain makes meaning. It’s how we simulate risk, make predictions, and evaluate what matters.
- Emotion and conflict engage attention.
- Relatability builds buy-in.
- Agency creates ownership.
If you want your team to follow your processes – not because they’re told to, but because they want to – try this:
- Understand the current misbelief and define what you want your people to believe. Rather than saying, “Creating and maintaining a project plan takes too much time and gives little value,” try, “Spending time upfront on a project plan saves time, reduces stress, and helps me hit my KPIs.”
- Tell a story from your personal experience. If your goal is to influence behavior, start with the people, not the task.
- Understand what people want and what’s at stake. They want to finish projects on time and hit profitability targets. Their credibility, stress level, and bonus potential are at stake.
- Provide what Lisa Cron calls an “Aha” moment. Give them a realistic moment where their misbelief fails them.
Finally, don’t preach. Prompt. People are more likely to take action when they feel the decision is theirs, rather than something forced upon them. If you tell your team, “You have to follow this process,” they may comply temporarily, but it feels imposed.
But if you tell a story where someone just like them faced a challenge, chose to use the process, and succeeded, they begin to see the value. You haven’t told them what to do. You’ve shown them what’s possible. Now they can choose to follow the process because they see the benefit. That’s human agency. And once they choose it, they’re more likely to take responsibility for it. That’s ownership.
Storytelling is not fluff; it’s a strategic tool. As a manager, your ability to influence your team doesn’t come just from authority. It comes from your ability to make them care. When you lead with a story, you move past resistance and tap into motivation. That’s how you shift behavior. That’s how you build accountability. And that’s how you get projects across the finish line – with your team fully on board.
Greg Sepeda is a former engineering manager and is currently rewired as a management consultant. Connect with him on LinkedIn.